TORRINGTON – Grave side memorial services for Betty Jean Smith, 92, will be 10 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020, at the Valley View Cemetery in Torrington, with Pastor Rick Carroll officiating. Betty died Sept. 6, 2020, at Community Hospital and cremation has taken place.
In lieu of flowers memorial to the donor’s choice would be appreciated. Arrangements are by the Colyer Funeral Home and condolences may be sent to www.colyerfuneralhome.com.
Betty was born Feb. 6, 1928, in Denver, Colo., the daughter of Lloyd and Jenny (Mathews) Lyman. Her mother died when she was 10 and her father remarried to Pearl Harms. She grew up in the Bayard, Neb., area and graduated Bayard High School in 1946. She then attended and graduated from West Nebraska Methodist Hospital in Scottsbluff as a Registered Nurse in 1949.
Betty married Kayo Smith on Aug. 27, 1950, in Bayard. She worked as a nurse in Omaha, Neb., while Kayo attended medical school. After his graduation in 1954, they moved to Oakland, Calif., for his residency and then to Lahaina, Hawaii, for six months before returning to Bayard for a year and then to Torrington in 1957, where her husband joined Torrington Medical Group as a General Practitioner, M.D.
Betty worked in many places over the years, including the US Bureau of Indian Affairs in Pine Ridge, S.D., the Visiting Nurses Association in Omaha, the University of Nebraska Medical School in the OB ward in Omaha, Merritt Hospital in Oakland, and the Lahaina Hospital in Hawaii. Betty was Kayo’s “right hand man” in life, in his career and in ranching as they raised Charolais cattle in Fort Laramie.
Betty enjoyed knitting, crewel work, reading, Western history, antiquing, refinishing antiques, and making chokecherry wine and jelly. Her love of the outdoors included backpacking, fishing, hunting, camping, watching the University of Nebraska and Wyoming football. She was a basketball fan and enjoyed catching sporting events on the radio. She was affiliated with P.E.O. where she was a 53-year member of Chapter AK, the Republican party, where she was a 20-year committee woman, the American Legion Auxiliary, the United Methodist Church Women’s Circle, and supported her kids activities as a Cub Scout leader, Boy Scouts, Campfire Girls, Job’s Daughters, 4-H and high school sporting events.
Betty is survived by a daughter, Joanne (Richard) Lora Zimmerman of Chandler, Ariz.; a son, Todd Kayo Smith of Fort Laramie; a daughter-in-law, Dr. Marion Smith of Torrington; five grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Kayo; a son, Steven Norris Smith; a grandson, Scott Adams Zimmerman; a sister, Joanne Jeanette Lyman; a brother, Richard LeRoy Lyman; two step-brothers, Richard Harms and Robert Harms; and her step-mother.
